Tribute to Albert Camus

by Jean-Paul Sartre


Six months ago, even yesterday, people wondered: "What is he going to do?"
Temporarily, torn by contradictions that must be respected, he had chosen silence.
But he was one of those rare men we can well afford to wait for,
because they are slow to choose and remain faithful to their choice.
Some day he would speak out. We could not even have dared hazard a guess as to what he might say.
But we thought that he had changed with the world as we all do;
that was enough for us to be aware of his presence.

He and I had quarreled. A quarrel doesn't matter...even if those who quarrel never see each other again...
just another way of living together without losing sight of one another
in the narrow little world that is allotted us.
It didn't keep me from thinking of him,
from feeling that his eyes were on the book or newspaper I was reading and wondering:
"What does he think of it? What does he think of it at this moment?"

His silence, which according to events and my mood I considered sometimes too cautious
and sometimes painful,was a quality of every day like heat or light, but it was human.
We lived with or against his thought as it was revealed to us in his books-
especially The Fall, perhaps the finest and least understood-but always in relation to it.
It was an exceptional adventure of our culture, a movement of which we tried to guess
the phases and the final outcome.

He represented in our time the latest example of that long line of moralistes whose works constitute
perhaps the most original element in French letters.
His obstinate humanism, narrow and pure, austere and sensual,
waged an uncertain war against the massive and formless events of the time.
But on the other hand through his dogged rejections he reaffirmed, at the heart of our epoch,
against the Machiavellians and against the Idol of realism, the existence of the moral issue.
In a way, he was that resolute affirmation.
Anyone who read or reflected encountered the human values he held in his fist;
he questioned the political act.
One had to avoid him or fight him-he was indispensable to that tension
which makes intellectual life what it is.
His very silence, these last few years, had something positive about it:
This Descartes of the Absurd refused to leave the safe ground of morality
and venture on the uncertain paths of practicality.
We sensed this and we also sensed the conflicts he kept hidden, for ethics, taken alone,
both requires and condemns revolt.

We were waiting; we had to wait; we had to know. Whatever he did or decided subsequently,
Camus would never have ceased to be one of the chief forces of our cultural activity
or to represent in his way the history of France and of this century.
But we should probably have known and understood his itinerary.
He said so himself: "My work lies ahead." Now it is over.
The particular scandal of his death is the abolition of the human order by the inhuman.

The human order is still but a disorder: it is unjust and precarious; it involves killing, and dying of hunger;
but at least it is founded, maintained, or resisted by men.
In that order Camus had to live. That man on the move questioned us,
was himself a question seeking its reply;
he lived in the middle of a long life; for us, for him, for the men who maintain order
and for those who reject it,
it was important for him to break his silence, for him to decide, for him to conclude.
Some die in old age while others,
forever on reprieve, may die at any minute without the meaning of their life, of life itself, being changed.
But for us, uncertain without a compass, our best men had to reach the end of the tunnel.
Rarely have the nature of a man's work and the conditions of the historical moment
so clearly demanded that a writer go on living.

I call the accident that killed Camus a scandal because it suddenly projects into the center
of our human world the absurdity of our most fundamental needs.
At the age of twenty, Camus, suddenly afflicted with a malady that upset his whole life,
discovered the Absurd-the senseless negation of man.
He became accustomed to it, he thought out his unbearable condition, he came through.
And yet one is tempted to think that only his first works tell the truth about his life,
since that invalid once cured is annihilated by an unexpected death from the outside.

The Absurd might be that question that no one will ask him now, that he will ask no one,
that silence that is not even a silence now, that is absolutely nothing now.
I don't think so.
The moment it appears, the inhuman becomes a part of the human.
Every life that is cut off-even the life of so young a man -
is at one and the same time a phonograph record that is broken and a complete life.
For all those who loved him, there is an unbearable absurdity in that death.
But we shall have to learn to see that mutilated work as a total work.
Insofar as Camus's humanism contains a human attitude toward the death that was to take him by surprise,
insofar as his proud and pure quest for happiness implied and called for the inhuman necessity of dying,
we shall recognize in that work and in the life that is inseparable from it
the pure and victorious attempt of one man to snatch every instant of his existence from his future death.




via
The Reporter Magazine, February 4, 1960, p. 34. Copyright 1960 by The Reporter Magazine Company.
Translated by Justin O'Brien. Reprinted by permission of the author and The Reporter Magazine.

16 Life Lessons From Jarvis Cocker

1.NEVER MIX CIDER AND RED WINE
"That's one of my life lessons. Fucking awful, the headache you get after that is the worst ever."

2. MOST POP STARS HAVE DEFECTIVE PERSONALITIES
"People who make good music aren't necessarily nice people.
There is a personality type to pop stars - a defective personality, I think.
You have the desire to receive adulation from people to make you feel alright about yourself.
That's why often the best pop stars screw themselves up because the reality doesn't provide the thing they were looking for.
Having a group is a chance to create your own world. It's like you can make this little thing that adheres to your rules.
But of course if people then decide they like it, it gets taken away from you, and then you realise it doesn't take you
into a magical land where everybody's your servant and that's when people have problems with it."

3. THERE'S NOTHING DULLER THAN A CAREERIST
"I've always liked people who mess up. I don't like career people -
it doesn't seem very appropriate when it comes to music which is about something emotional.
Reading an interview with Razorlight is just like reading The Economist,
saying, 'Yeah, well we're going to be really big in America and we think this album's going to follow up the next one' -
that's what the record company should be saying, not the people in the band.
And even The Rapture, who I like, there was an article recently about them
being managed by the same people who manage U2.
I just thought, 'Why do I want to know that?' That's not what music's about.
I don't care who they're managed by. I don't care who makes their guitars.
I don't care how many records they've sold, really, I just want to know whether they've got anything to say."

4. RAVE GAVE ME A GLIMPSE OF A UTOPIAN SOCIETY
"I'm too old for new rave but it sounds interesting. Proper raves were the best musical events that I ever went to.
Mobile phones had only just come in, so you had to meet someone at a lay-by who had a mobile phone,
who would then tell you the next place to go.
It was like a treasure hunt and then you'd end up dancing in one of the escape tunnels for animals under the M25.
People weren't bothered about having a drink and it wasn't really about copping off.
It was about being there, getting excited and dancing.
Obviously the drugs helped, but it was a different way of thinking about entertaining yourself.
I thought it was going to lead to some big change in society
and that's why I ended up writing 'Sorted For E's & Wizz' because at the end of it I thought, 'Oh no, it isn't'.
My flirtation with it was only about six months because I'm not strong enough to take drugs for a long period of time."

5. NEVER TRUST A MAN WHO WEARS ANKLE SOCKS
"You've either got to have no socks or long socks that reach your knee. This is going to sound very pretentious,
but I get them from a shop in Rome called Schostal. It's very good. I have to buy about 20 pairs at once.
They're fine cotton in all different colours. You can get them over the internet."

6. NO-ONE WANTS TO BE SQUARE ANYMORE
"In my day, Topshop was just a place for townies to go - nobody else would be seen dead in there.
You'd get your white shirt and your pleat top trousers, but now it's all things with bits of zips and chains hanging off -
it's quite extreme. The obscure trendy things are now the mainstream townie things.
That's why those 'Guilty Pleasures' things are popular, because it's nostalgia for a time
when there was that naff side of things that you did like a bit because some tunes were good.
But nobody wants to be square any more, or they'll do it in a very knowing way,
like The Feeling. There isn't that big mass of normal people."

7. WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW - BUT NOT IF IT'S BORING
"I like pop music but then I wish that it would try harder with what it talks about. It doesn't have to be dark,
but life is dark, isn't it? Let's face it.
If I'm listening to somebody, I want to get some sense of what that person's about. Arctic Monkeys' lyrics are good,
it's just a shame for them that everyone starts copying them. Like, I heard this other Sheffield band called Little Man Tate,
who I thought were appalling. One song was all about going down to London, and trying to get a record deal.
I thought, 'Alright, it's good to write about your real life, but also that's a bit boring.
Try and write about something else'."

8. LIVE YOUR LIFE AND THE WORK WILL FOLLOW
"I once read a quote from Nick Cave which I thought was good where he said
the work that you produce is like the trail that a snail leaves behind it.
Which I think is quite true. It's not very pleasant and it's very slow, but it's just a by-product of living."

9. EVERYBODY HAS HORRIBLE THOUGHTS
"Relaxed Muscle [Jarvis' quasi-electroclash experiment with Richard Hawley]
was a way of me getting negative, unpleasant feelings out.
At the time I'd just got married and my wife was pregnant so I was thinking, 'Oh, I've got to be a nice person now,
I've got to be nurturing' and it's not really my natural personality.
In a slightly pathetic way I suppose songs are a way of me saying things
I wouldn't dare say in the normal course of the conversation.
To get those feelings out in a song is healthier than having them festering away,
because everybody's got horrible thoughts - well, I think they have anyway.
Nice people bore me. Not in real life, but if I go and read a book or see a film,
if somebody's too nice I'm like, 'Fuck off and be nice somewhere else, I don't want to know about it'.
I always like the baddies much more. It's like if you watch Snow White, you fancy the witch a lot more than Snow White.
She looks like she could teach you a thing or two."

10. PUT SUGAR IN A CAPPUCCINO LIKE PAUL WELLER
"I read an NME interview with Paul Weller when he was starting The Style Council.
He said you've got to get the sachet and pour it in just one area
and then wait for the weight of the sugar to fall through the foam.
Then you put the spoon through the hole that the sugar's just made and stir.
That way you still have the froth but the sugar's dispersed in the cappuccino.
Every time I have a cappuccino I think of Paul Weller."

11. DON'T SEDATE YOURSELF WITH CULTURE - READ
"Boredom can be a big inspiration, because you have to invent something to entertain yourself,
otherwise you'll go crackers. If you can just watch a film on your iPod...
it's like culture becomes not so much a stimulating thing but a pacifying thing.
That's why I've really got into reading a lot more recently, because a book doesn't seem quite as passive.
It's like you're in this person's company for 300 pages.
You get inside their thought processes, and that becomes part of your mental landscape.
I re-read all of JD Salinger's books recently - I'm probably a bit old to be doing that,
but I really enjoyed those and then Carson McCullers.
There's a bit of her voice on my record, on 'Big Julie',
which was partly inspired by her book, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. It's very good. Just read anything."

12. THE INTERNET TAKES THE ARTIST OFF HIS PEDESTAL
"It's good in that you've got a fairly direct relationship with people who are interested in what you're doing.
It's fairly unmediated. You put music there and then people come across it
and if they're interested they'll listen to it and they'll tell their friends.
There's not as much hype and marketing.
I'm sure the powers that be are working overtime to find a way to control it but at the moment it still feels fairly pure.
For instance, I've been doing these podcasts with me just reading these stories.
You couldn't do that any other way than the internet, really. If you want to hear it, have a listen, it's not such a big deal.
It doesn't seem so much like the artist on high delivering his message to the world.
I've never really liked the fact that because you're stood on a stage
that somehow turns you into some kind of exotic creature, that's rubbish.
The exciting thing about concerts is everybody being in the same room together for that little bit of time."

13. AT SOME POINT, YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE DARK SIDE
"My darkest moment? There's probably quite a few. I remember seeing some people sniffing some cocaine off the cover of 'Scott 4' and thinking, 'That's my favourite record and that just doesn't seem right'. Stuff like that is just when the magic goes away from it but you do it to yourself, as Thom Yorke would say. I think it's a necessary thing to go through. It's like puberty, it just happens, doesn't it? Sometimes the accumulation of knowledge isn't a particularly pleasant process but there's no wishing it away, so you have to keep going deeper into the heart of darkness. I think you do it until you come out the other side. A person has to develop. Otherwise, you're not quite human, are you?"

14. I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP ON GOING INTO SPACE
"I'll never learn how to tumble which I regret.
I'll never learn how to inline skate, although I'm not that arsed about that.
I haven't given up on going into space although I'm going to have to save up because it's fucking expensive.
I could have said I'll never make a record with a saxophone on it
but then there is a saxophone on this latest record but it's very quiet. I'll never have a saxophone solo.
I think I can safely say that.
Although now I've said that I'm bound to want to do it. It's just got so many bad connotations, hasn't it?
I'll never sew all the buttons that I've got hidden in the pockets back on the jackets they fell off.
And I'll probably never see Dog Day Afternoon.
It's weird, it's one of them films that I've always thought is very interesting
and I've never managed to get round to seeing it."

15. YOU DON'T CHOOSE WHAT TO DO
"As soon as I said to myself I was going to stop making music I started writing songs in my head.
If you have to try too hard, that means it's not really the thing for you.
I know that's probably an invitation for people to be lazy but it's true."

16. WHEN IT COMES TO MUSIC, 99.9% CORRECT IS STILL WRONG
"There's no such thing as, 'Ooh I've written an almost classic'. It's either classic or it's not.
You can get it 99.9 per cent of the way there but if you don't get it that extra 0.1 per cent it won't be right,
so it may as well be totally wrong.
You can't sit down and decide to write a classic - look what happened when Adrian Gurvitz did it. (Sings)
'Got to write a classic/Got to write it in an attic' - it's one of the most tragic songs ever.
It's the frustrating thing about music, but it's also the exciting thing that there isn't a hard and fast way to do it.
But when you do get something good, the excitement you feel justifies all the stumbling about."



an inteview from New Musical Express, 30 September 2006
via acrylicafternoons

10 Rules of Style by Jean Touitou of A.P.C.

I love reading Jean Touitou's interview.

I think he has such a great sense of humor,

no matter what I (sometime) disagree.....

....he could always makes me laugh

This one is from detailsmag.com

1. We’re not living in a very creative era. That’s not good or bad; it’s just the way it is. I think it’s in very bad taste to buy art right now. People should leave it to the hedge-fund owners who want to satisfy their wives. “Hey, I bought a Chinese avant-garde thing.” Good for you.

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2. I think it’s very important to look sexy at home. I hate it when people say, “I will take this to the countryside because it’s not fashionable anymore.” I love being well-dressed when nobody’s looking at me.

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3.At hotels, they always mess up the cleaning. They will do a crease when it’s not necessary. You give them a cotton shirt and they dry-clean it. It smells funny, so you have to rinse it again. So I travel light.

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4. If you can tell a man’s sexuality by the way he dresses—like a “gay” uniform or a “macho” uniform—that’s disgusting.

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5. Nowadays, people work out way too much, and they look like invaders from another planet. A guy who works out two hours a day—focusing on his chest because he thinks it’s sexy—you can’t dress him, even if you send him to the best designer or stylist in the world.

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6. Finance men have money but no taste. They’ll say, “My wife thinks this tie looks good on me.” They don’t focus on what’s beautiful and what’s not beautiful—they leave it to women.

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7. The rock star who uses a personal stylist to dress him should go to jail. If you’re doing rock and roll, you should know how to dress. You shouldn’t need to hire anybody.

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8. Anybody can be a good guest for dinner. When it gets delicate is after one day. The worst guests are the people who come to your place and in the morning they say, “Okay, what do we do today?”

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9. I once wore a pink, ruffled shirt for dinner, and I wish I had never done it. I thought it was funny, but I felt so bad in it I realized I don’t have the humor to deal with ugliness.

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10. After you’re 35, it’s difficult to drink unless you’re running 10 miles a day. I’m not talking one dry martini every Saturday or something. I’m talking three dry martinis a night. And I don’t think that’s possible—it’s too much poisoning. It’s not a very sexy way to talk about drinking, but that’s the truth.

Read from here

Gingham, Tartan, Plaid....I'm so confused

Ever wonder....what's the difference between them?....I do.

And because English is my second language

so I have to search for the answers.

And this is what make me understand.......

that I mixed up with those for a long time.

Gingham

I just have known that what I like is called "Gingham"

GINGHAM usually comes in a checkered pattern 

and is distinguished by white and colored, even-sized checks.

This pattern is formed by horizontal and vertical stripes 

(usually of the same color) 

that cross each other on a white background to form even checks.

(More details here)

Tartan and Plaid

"Tartan" and "Plaid" make me even more confused.............

TARTAN is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal 

and vertical bands in multiple colours.

Tartans originated in woven cloth, now used in many other materials.

Tartan is also known as PLAID in North America,

but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder or a blanket.

Today the term PLAID is commonly used to describe what is actually TARTAN.

(Read more at wikipedia)

.

Madras

And then there is "Madras" that I've seen this word at A.P.C line.

MARDRAS is a lightweight cotton fabric

with typically patterned texture and plaid design,

noted for its diffused bands of colour

due to the use of non-colourfast dyes bleeding into each other,

used primarily for summer clothing....pants, shorts, dresses and jackets.

The fabric takes its name from the former English name of the city of Chennai, India.

As a fabric, it is notable because the front and back of the fabric are indistinguishable.

(Read from here)

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I hope what I'm thinking now is correct. (sigh...)

Jean Touitou's Dazed digital interview

Jean Touitou, the founder of A.P.C has an interview with Dazed digital.
He gives such a witty answer.

Production or Creation?Procreation

Radical or normal?
Normal is radical now.

Wood or Steel?Concrete, wood and steel.

Roger Moore or Sean Connery?
Roger who? You gotta be kidding me!

Rock or disco?This is too private.

Raw denim jeans or check shirt?
Raw power.God bless

America or god save the queen?Godmiché for the Queens

Evolution or revolution?
At this point, we need a conscience preparation, then we'll see how fast things can be changed.

North or South or East or West?North by North-West, of course!

Cat Power or Lou Doillon?Chan can sing, Lou can laugh.

Rollerskate or skateboard?
Rollerskates before 9 years old. Not more. Beyond this age limit, rollerskates should not be forgiven.

Stones or Beatles ?Stones are cheap pussies, I mean that.

Kenzo or Agnes B?Kenzo from '77 to '81.

Navy blue or beige?
The darkest navy blue.

Art or History?
History is a very good drug. Art died with god

Trotsky or Mao?Dantec !!!! (I know it's easy to say that now, but both had a terrible understanding of Marx. Mao deserved to be terminated with a mountain pick. Trotsky didn't deserve that.)

Kinks or The Who?
Ray Davies' voice and lyrics moves me more than anything.

Elitism or Popularity?
Aiming for mass elitism.

Style or Substance?
Style without substance is too Warholian; five minutes of fun, and ready for the bin... style needs substance - even when an incredible substance has no style, who the fuck cares! We crave for great substance.





Read from here